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Tuesday Tales, Part XIII: The Trials of the Silver Fern–Orrell Wyndstrom

The Trials of the Silver Fern: Orrell Wyndstrom. Orrell Wyndstrom was a notorious and much-feared shaman in Braelin in the year 92. He was most well-known among locals not for the large tract of land he held, but rather for the rumor regarding his servants and vassals. It was believed that Wyndstrom had built his manor atop the ruins of a once-thriving village that Wyndstrom himself had destroyed, down to the very last woman and child. Many said that, by raising and controlling the bodies and spirits of these victims, Wyndstrom had managed to hold, maintain, and defend his lands for close to a century.

The founding members of the Silver Fern, as part of their decades-long task to prove the worthiness of their Order, chose to investigate Wyndstrom’s actions. To their horror, they found that he had been desecrating the villagers’ corpses while undertaking experiments geared toward finding a way to extend a Human’s natural lifespan. The three mages decreed that Wyndstrom’s practices directly violated of the Code of Magic they had set forth to guide the actions of magic-users in Braelin, and demanded that he cease and desist his practices so that the spirits could rest in peace at last. Wyndstrom refused, hunkering down in a fortress guarded by legions of undead soldiers

In response to his stalwart defiance, the members of the Silver Fern laid siege to the castle. After ten long days of battle they finally broke through the front of undead and attacked the keep. Wyndstrom had gone into hiding at the top of the tower; and there it was that the Silver Fern mages found a shell of a once-powerful shaman, barely holding on to the simulated life for which he had been searching so long.

Once the undead had been cleared out and the mages had begun the process of restoring the affected lands, Wyndstrom was taken to Esos for trial. There it was decided that simple execution would not do justice to the deaths and suffering he had caused over the course of the past century. Instead the judge ruled that Wyndstrom must live out the remainder of his life imprisoned in Esos, slowly watching his magical energies drain away and his body decay as a result. The judgment was carried out; all told, it took seven long years for Wyndstrom to pass on at last.